The Room Beyond (3 page)

‘A THOUSAND apologies for my lateness! Am I late?’

The new voice seemed to hurl itself across the room at them. It came
from a figure standing in the doorway. A woman. She was wearing a sapphire blue
dress and her hair had been adorned with peacock feathers.

‘And which of you is my hostess?’

The woman’s voice had such a deep velvety resonance that Miranda’s
answer seemed to dry up in her own throat. And when she did speak her voice
shook appallingly.

‘Hello Mrs Eden,’ she rattled. ‘I’m so glad you were able to come. Please,
sit down.’

‘Lucinda! Call me Lucinda! Do you have any champagne? I’m incredibly
thirsty.’

‘Um...’ She scanned the room for help. Jane and Mrs Jameson were
gaping open mouthed at the woman. Reverend Farthing fiddled with his wig.

‘Of course we have champagne.’ Tristan stepped forward. ‘If you will
allow me a moment, I’ll take care of it myself.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied, fixing her almond eyes on him. ‘You are
Tristan Whitestone?’

‘Yes, although we have met briefly before.’

‘Before? I remember very little from
before
I’m afraid. I
have been reincarnated you see, burnt on my husband’s funeral pyre and
resurrected, a shadow of my former self.’

‘You husband has passed away my dear?’ asked Mrs Jameson.

Lucinda’s lips parted in a grin which revealed a flash of her white
teeth. ‘No, madam, but I wish he would.’

Alice in Wonderland
.

Yes, it had been Alice, the little girl in the story, who’d found
herself shutting up like a telescope.

Tristan disappeared from the room and the cold shiver of having been
left stranded in a dark lonely place ran up Miranda’s spine.

‘We were commenting just now on how close the air is tonight,’ she
faltered. ‘Reverend Farthing thinks that there’s going to be a storm.’

But Lucinda only widened her great eyes in astonishment, as if she’d
just been spoken to in an exotic language.

‘Really?’ she replied. ‘I rarely notice the weather.’

How was it possible that someone swathed in such gaudy apparel could
still appear so frustratingly beautiful? Miranda could barely take her eyes off
her. Her neighbour’s face had suffered a little in the last year, that was
quite evident. Her cheeks had grown lean and there were small lines forming at
the corners of her eyes, but it was still the sort of face that could command
an entire room to look at it and enough to make Miranda feel smaller and paler
than ever.

‘I hope you are managing quite well on your own now,’ said Jane. ‘It
was only the other day that I raised some concern at not having seen you since
arriving at my sister’s house.’

‘I rarely leave my home,’ replied Lucinda. ‘It’s been quite
miserable; there are so many wagging tongues out there you see. People with
nothing better to do. No, I prefer to stay in my house for now, where I feel
safe.’

She drew her fingers through some loose locks of hair which had
fallen over her shoulder between the feathers and Miranda’s hand darted
instinctively to her own nest of hair, all wispy mousiness; quite impossible to
coax into anything more than the drabbest of styles.

Tristan swept back into the room, the butler following with
champagne.

‘How long have you lived in Marguerite Avenue dear?’ asked Mrs
Jameson.

Lucinda smiled. ‘Since the buildings were first constructed. My
father gave me my house as a wedding present.’

‘What a kind thing to do!’

She raised an eyebrow in response.

‘It seems that our guest would disagree with you there,’ said
Tristan. He hardly blinked as he looked at her and Lucinda met him straight on,
her eyes twinkling.

‘Yes, he’s right,’ she nodded. ‘You see my father only bought the
house to get rid of me, and my vulgar gypsy husband.’

Silence.

‘Shall we go through to dinner?’ said Jane.

In spite of all the open windows, the dining room was so hot that
Miranda’s thighs glued themselves together and her body began to slide inside
her clothing. The roast beef stared up at her from her plate like a ghoulish
mouth. The smell of jasmine now only curdled in the heat of the room, turning
everything sickly. Tristan had been right after all, she really shouldn’t have
planted the thing by the window.

Lucinda yawned through the small talk and toyed idly with the stem
of her wineglass. Miranda watched Tristan’s eyes simmer across the woman in the
candlelight. He began with her fingers that were stroking and fawning at the
glass, and then he moved on up the pale flesh of her arm and across her
shoulder, which was glistening slightly in the heat.

‘I see you’ve had your portrait done,’ said Lucinda suddenly,
interrupting whatever it was that Reverend Farthing had been talking about. He
brought his conversation to a close by coughing into his napkin.

‘Yes, a wedding present from Miranda’s father. An Italian did it for
us I think, what was his name?’

Miranda felt her face flush as the entire room turned to stare at
the ghastly portrait of the two of them.

‘Berlotti maybe,’ she stammered. ‘Something like that.’

Lucinda cocked her head at it. ‘That’s an excellent likeness of you
Mr Whitestone.’

‘Thank you.’

But she then cast a quizzical eye across Miranda before staring back
at the painting again. ‘The mind of an artist can work in such extraordinary
ways; don’t you think Mrs Whitestone?’

Tristan flashed a sardonic smile at them all. ‘Surely you must find
yourself at less of a disadvantage now,’ he said to Lucinda. ‘You after all
received a house as your wedding gift; we on the other hand have had to make do
with that picture.’

Lucinda threw her head back in laughter, her breasts rising up in
her tight bodice. ‘But you don’t know my father; you can have him if you like!’
she cried, raising her glass at the same time. ‘There, it’s settled. I happily
bequeath you my father!’

‘You do not have a good relationship with your family?’ asked Jane.

‘They are idiotic, unimaginative people, don’t you think?’ Lucinda
replied.

‘I’m afraid we don’t know them,’ answered Mrs Jameson.

‘Oh, I thought everyone did.’

‘I think I know,’ said Jane. ‘Are they not the Hartreves? They have
an estate in Wiltshire.’

‘Spot on! Let us toast those fine, horse loving people!’

And Lucinda slammed her glass vigorously against Reverend Farthing’s.

Miranda rose to her feet. ‘Anyone for water?’ She could feel her
neck coming out in blotches, like hot welts on her skin. ‘It’s getting awfully
hot in here, the beginning of a fine summer I imagine.’

Out in the hallway the air was cooler and blissfully quiet. She was
actually panting, as if she’d just run a great distance.

‘Are you alright?’

It was Mrs Hubbard.

‘Yes, fine thank you. Just in search of some water for the guests.’

The cook knitted her brow a little, the corners of her mouth turned
down in a sad crescent moon. Miranda knew that look quite well. It was
protective, motherly, enough to unleash the torrent of tears she was trying to
restrain.

‘The food was marvellous, thank you so much. I’m sure you’ll be
wanting to get home to your family soon.’

Mrs Hubbard brushed her apron smooth and shook her head. Her hair
was almost completely grey and tied back in a no-nonsense sort of way from her
high forehead.

‘Oh I wouldn’t worry about them; it’s not the same once you’re
widowed and my boys are all old enough to look after themselves. I’ll get the
girl to bring your water.’

Miranda nodded silently and let her eyes rest on the apron knot in
the centre of Mrs Hubbard’s back as she hurried away.

Back inside the dining room Mrs Eden now appeared to be humming to
the tune of a popular music hall song as Reverend Farthing talked with the
Jamesons. Jane threw her a glance, her jaw clenched as tight as a ship’s bolt.
‘Sort this out Miranda,’ her expression seemed to say. Tristan’s eyes were
radiant and his shoulders shook with amusement.

‘Don’t you agree, Reverend, that this city is falling into
degeneracy?’ asked Mrs Jameson suddenly across the noise. ‘That the politicians
who govern us, the people of commerce, the artists, the musicians, all of them,
are turning their backs too readily on God? I know of no other place so
destitute.’

The humming stopped.

‘It is one of the many dilemmas of our modern decadent society, Mrs
Jameson, and is at the forefront of so many of my sermons...’

‘May I interrupt?’ asked Lucinda. She reached over to an arrangement
of fruit on the dresser behind her and plucked a grape, raising the green orb
up to the candlelight. Miranda held her breath.

‘Why of course my dear,’ said the Reverend. ‘Is there a point you
wish to add?’

‘Yes, you see I’m a little muddled. Surely society as a whole is
turning away from religion because people are finally beginning to accept the
fact that there is no God. We are almost at the dawn of the twentieth century! Surely
we’ve now reached a point where as human beings we can not only recognize but
embrace our jungle heritage.’

She placed the grape in her mouth and crushed it, loudly, between
her teeth.

Miranda gripped the edge of the table, her heart pounding in her
ears. But then a sudden unexpected clamour of what sounded like applause and
laughter broke through: Tristan, clapping and bellowing loudly.

‘Bravo!’ he cried repeatedly. ‘Bravo!’

Slowly the room’s tense shoulders softened around her.

‘Have you ever acted before?’ he asked her. ‘You’d make a first-class
actress.’

‘A little, but that was my husband Alfonso’s territory. I haven’t so
much as stepped inside a theatre in months.’

‘Then you must come with us, next week. What is it we’re going to
see dear?’

‘Hamlet.’

‘Ah yes, Hamlet. Go on, say you’ll join us.’

Lucinda brushed her fingers across her forehead. ‘Perhaps, but
unfortunately I have to leave you now; I’m afraid I’ve developed one of my
headaches. They plague me nowadays. I hope you won’t think me rude. What a
divine evening!’

Miranda forced herself up. ‘It’s been a pleasure, I’m so sorry about
you poor health. Perhaps a good physician...’ But Lucinda was already half way
out of the room. ‘Let me show you to the door!’

‘Not at all, I can manage quite well. Good night,’ she cried without
a backwards glance.

And then she was gone. All that glimmering blueness just suddenly
vanished. Miranda collapsed back into her chair again; her joints stiff and
tired. It had been even worse than she’d imagined and yet her sudden absence
now felt surprisingly menacing. The table had turned into an arid plain. Tristan
already looked glum again. He filled his wine to the top of the glass and
embraced it towards himself. The rest of the party politely peered at their
plates and toyed with their napkins.

‘Reverend, do please tell us what we have to look forward to from
your next sermon,’ she said quietly.

The Reverend looked pleased. He opened his mouth and began to speak
but the sound of his voice barely touched her. She smiled and nodded from afar
as if she were drifting gently away. And then the image of those glistening
peacock feathers came back to her, entwined in all that hair.

What colour was Mrs Eden’s hair exactly? Chestnut? It was hard to
tell. Yes, chestnut, with sparks of red running through it. And all that flesh
on display, ripe and fruity, good enough to sink your teeth into. No. It was
quite simply out of the question. She’d have to cancel Hamlet. They’d move
house if necessary. On absolutely no account would she ever let Tristan into
the company of that woman again.

Serena’s Story

‘It’ll rain,’ said Jessica. She was twisting her head back owl-like
whilst gripping the steering wheel with one hand and the back of my headrest
with the other.

‘You’ll never get in. There’s a much larger space over there,’ I
said.

‘Yes, but that’s on the wrong side of the road. You should take an
umbrella; I’ve got one in the boot.’

The sky was yellowish and soupy but I could just about spot some
blue patches in the distance.

‘I don’t need it, it won’t rain, and I’ve got enough stuff to get
onto the train as it is.’

She snapped off the engine with a triumphant flourish. ‘Did it! Now
I’ve got something for you, a sort of good luck in your new job present.’ She
grabbed her handbag from the back and rummaged about in it. ‘I thought of you
as soon as I saw it in the shop. There you go.’

She handed me a red velvet jewellery box and inside there was a
small brooch, watery pink and gold in colour and finely crafted to replicate
the feathery petals of a peony. Tears instantly sparked up in the corners of my
eyes.

‘It’s beautiful Jess. It makes me think of her.’

‘Yes I know, she did love them.’

The image of Mum kneeling in the garden instantly came back to me. I
could still just about recall the sickled curve of her back under her old T-shirt
as she patted down fresh soil, petals brushing against her face. I fixed the
brooch to my top and kissed Jessica on the cheek.

‘Thank you.’

‘Good luck darling, not that you need it.’

My pile of bags billowed up out of the back seat, pressing themselves
tightly against the window. They looked a lot heavier now than when they’d sat
in the corridor at home. I dragged them out hotly.

‘Are you really going to be alright?’ Jessica craned her neck from
her place behind the wheel.

‘Of course. What could go wrong looking after a four year old? Bye,
and thanks for the brooch.’

‘Serena, the umbrella!’

The train was stuffy; it smelt of synthetic fast food and coffee
breath. It was only a short half hour journey into Paddington but I felt as if
I were plunging headlong into a different world and ribbons of expectation
tangled themselves up into a tight knot at the pit of my stomach.

I prayed that Beth would like me. I’d read enough books about
parenting and caring for children in the last few days to try and blag my way
through bedtime routines, descriptive praise and learning through play. Hopefully
it would be enough.

When I dropped my heavy bags down on the Hartreves’ doorstep the sky
was still heavy and foreboding, but it hadn’t rained and I glared at Jessica’s
huge umbrella neatly folded up on the top of the pile.

This time a small, neat-looking woman opened the door with a little
girl right beside her. Beth. She eyed me curiously from the threshold, delicate
arms hanging against her cotton dress and fine blonde hair tied up to one side.
She had an intelligent, impish face and intense blue eyes with which she
regarded me with deep seriousness.

In spite of her littleness she was really quite intimidating. The
few children I’d come across in my limited experience had been the sort of
individuals who liked running around in muddy gardens, playing rough and tumble
and pulling funny faces. Beth didn’t look like that sort of child at all.

‘Hello. I’m your new nanny.’

‘I like your brooch, what sort of flower is that?’

‘It’s a peony.’ I bent down so that she could have a better look. She
touched it tentatively with her fingertips as if the petals were real.

‘Do you like shells?’ she asked solemnly.

‘Um... well, yes!’

‘I’ll show you my shell collection then.’

She took me by the hand, tugging me inside, and I followed her up
several flights of stairs to a cool cream corridor.

‘This is my room, yours is up there.’

I followed the direction of her nod and to my surprise discovered
another much narrower flight of stairs directly opposite her door.

Beth’s room was spacious and sunny, with two bay windows overlooking
the street, but the walls and floor were more cluttered than an old forgotten
junk shop. Shelves overflowed and mounds of nick-nacks, old toys, books and
boxes of strange and unexplained objects covered almost every inch of carpet.

‘Here you will find my collections,’ she said with an encompassing
wave of an arm. ‘One day I would like to work in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
I’ve been there forty-seven times. Now let me find those shells.’

We climbed over to a precarious looking tower of boxes in the corner.
The top one was an open biscuit tin containing an assortment of rusty springs.

‘They’re just under here!’ she said, heaving it away with surprising
strength. Underneath, in yet another box, the shells glinted up at us like of
row of pink coiled snakes. ‘They’re from Morocco, very rare indeed.’

Beth had that concentrated look on her face of an expert basking in
the knowledge of her profession. And suddenly I could picture her on
The
Antiques Roadshow
, offering her informed opinion about people’s ancient
wardrobes and bits of jewellery. She cradled a particularly beautiful pink
specimen in her hands.

‘This is my favourite shell, it’s the same colour as that peony,’
and again she looked admiringly at my brooch.

‘Is pink your favourite colour? It was mine when I was a little
girl; I used to have a pink bedroom.’

‘It was for a while, but now I prefer turquoise and anything
sparkly.’

She picked up two more shells, more serious than ever. ‘These shells
look like they should come from fairyland.’

‘Have you been to fairyland?’

‘Of course not, it doesn’t really exist.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Eva.’

‘And who’s Eva when she’s at home?’

‘Don’t you know?’ and the little girl blinked at me. ‘Eva’s my
Mummy.’

‘So you’re already showing off your kingdom to her then,’ said a
voice.

The woman from downstairs was now standing in the doorway.

‘Oh I’m so sorry, I didn’t introduce myself properly to you,’ I
stumbled across the cluttered floor towards her with my hand stretched out. ‘I’m
Serena, Beth just whisked me away I’m afraid.’

The woman peered at me with startled eyes. She looked me up and down
and then exchanged a questioning sort of look with Beth.

‘I’m Gladys, the housekeeper,’ she said, her voice quivering
slightly as if she was shy. She cleared her throat. ‘And before you ask I do
try and clean this room but little lady guards it like you wouldn’t believe.’ She
coughed again and glanced about her a little awkwardly. ‘Now, would you like to
come and see your room?’

The three of us puffed our way up the narrow flight of stairs
together.

‘It’s a bit of a hike, but very private,’ said Gladys, pushing open
the single door that occupied the small landing at the summit. Bright daylight
instantly beamed across our faces.

The room was dominated by two glass panelled doors leading onto a
balcony and the view through them made me gasp with pleasure: fresh green
leaves on gnarled branches and glimpses of tiled roofs and chimney pots beyond.
My room was like a nest perched amidst London’s rooftops. It felt like being at
the top of a tower, or in a turret.

‘This is the first thing I’ll draw here,’ I exclaimed. ‘The chimney
pots poking up through the leaves.’

‘Are you an artist?’ asked Beth.

‘Yes. When I’m not being your nanny!’

The room itself was fairly small, with pale blue walls and not much
furniture, but I was far more interested in the view and the balcony which, on
further inspection, looked just large enough for a chair and perhaps a couple
of plants. It was home already.

‘You open the doors like this,’ said Gladys. She undid a small catch
and they opened effortlessly. ‘Nice view. In the winter you can see Holland
Park through the bare branches.’

I grasped the balcony railings and inhaled. The air smelt cooler,
cleaner from up here.

‘If you grew your hair longer you’d be like Rapunzel,’ came Beth’s
voice from somewhere behind me. She was curled up quite contentedly on my bed. It
was good to see that she already felt so comfortable in my company.

I gazed across the higgledy landscape of roofs and foliage and a
warm smile filled my face. The distance buzz of the city beyond rang gently in
my ears. To my right I could see the blunt corner of where the house finished;
the final frontier of Marguerite Avenue. To my left I could see two or three
similar balconies to my own on other houses belonging to the terrace, but the
majority had clearly been removed to make way for decades of alterations and
modernizations to the grand homes.

There was no balcony on the back of the house next door. I could
still see the mark on the wall where it had once been right next to mine, but
it must have been taken away to make way for a flat roofed extension that
jutted out just below. I turned away but then something instinctively made me
look back again. It was a feeling more than anything, a strange sort of
hollowness that made me peer through the still empty air. I grasped the railing
and swallowed. Funny, but I’d never suffered from heights before and this
certainly wasn’t the place to start.

Back in the room Gladys had gone and my bags had miraculously
arrived.

‘Would you like to meet Eva, she’s downstairs in the drawing room,’
said Beth, tilting her small face up at me from the bed. ‘With Seb,’ she
murmured, as if it was a sort of afterthought.

We floated down through the house; past a thousand paintings,
photographs, rustic looking jars of flowers on antique kidney-shaped tables. In
the hallway at the bottom the door to the room with the piano in it was half
open again. I craned my neck to see inside but no one was there this time.

‘That’s the library,’ Beth said, catching my glance. ‘But it doesn’t
have any books in it and no one ever reads in there. Robert uses it more than
anyone.’

‘Robert?’

‘My younger uncle. He’s a musical genius you know.’

‘Is he indeed? Actually, I think it must have been him playing here
last time I came.’

‘Yes probably. He plays the piano mostly, but he also has an
outstanding flair for the flute, violin and harp.’

‘Did you hear someone say that once?’

‘No. Come on, this is the drawing room over here.’

Beth grasped my hand, pulling me across the hallway through a door
with a bulbous doorknob like a paperweight. The drawing room was expansive and
high-ceilinged and was the perfect realization of warm wallowing comfort that I
must have craved for at a thousand dreary bus stops. It had the exact chair I’d
always wanted to curl up and hide in and the sort of all-encompassing sofas for
which most people would trade in their beds.

The room ran along the full depth of the house, with a bay window
looking out over the street in the front and an ornate raised conservatory at
the back. It had wooden panelling on the walls and a Turkish carpet on the
floor. In the middle two huge sofas sat opposite each other like basking
hippos, with a table between them and piles of books, newspapers and magazines
all around. I watched Beth walk over to the sofas and then realized that two
heads were lolling and half buried in the cushions there. One of them rested
against the back of the sofa facing away from me and revealed nothing more than
a mop of dark blonde hair. The other, which belonged to a woman on the sofa
opposite, was only just discernible from the nose up.

Both figures were slumped so low that there was something almost
secretive about their intimacy. It felt as if we’d caught them in the act of
disclosing confidences across the coffee table between them and I immediately
felt awkward. An instinctive urge made me pull back, but Beth grabbed me by the
hand and drew me further into the room.

As we came closer I caught sight of her properly, the woman in the
sofa opposite. She had an attractive, doe-eyed sort of face, but it was so cold
and so thin. The corners of her mouth and her eyes sloped downwards at the
edges in perfect parallel, like two rainbows, making it one of the saddest
expressions I’d ever seen.

I felt myself staring at her, rudely perhaps, but her face was a
riddle, and as approachable as a shard of broken glass. And beneath all of this
her fingers ran repeatedly along a string of pink pearls she was wearing around
her neck. The action reminded me of Arabella, although these hands were much
bonier.

‘Bethany, come and give me some of your big fat kisses,’ she said in
a quiet and considered voice. But Beth ignored the request and tucked her legs
up in a leather-bound armchair close by instead. I was left alone in the middle
of the room, not even sure whether she had noticed my presence at all.

‘What should I do?’ Eva continued. ‘Daddy wants me to go to university,
but where on earth am I meant to go with two Es and an F?’